It's a shame for Tom Douglas that the USDA retired its food pyramid before the Pharaonic restaurateur could secure naming rights to its base level of bread and pasta. At Douglas' new trio of South Lake Union restaurants, the bustling kitchens have their way with grains, churning out a global array of carbohydrate-packed plates.
Joshua Huston
Ting Momo's head chef Dekyi Thonden.
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TING MOMO 310 Terry Ave. N., 971-0720, tingmomo.com. 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Mon. - Fri.
CUOCO 310 Terry Ave. N., 971-0710, cuoco-seattle.com. 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. Mon. - Fri.; 4:30 - 10 p.m. Mon. - at.; 4:30 - 9 p.m. Sun.
BRAVE HORSE TAVERN 310 Terry Ave. N., 971-0717, bravehorsetavern.com. 11 a.m. - midnight Mon. - Fri.; 10 a.m. - midnight Sat. - Sun.
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Food Porn slideshow of Tom Douglas' SLU trifecta.
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On the ground floor of the boxy brick building that houses all three eateries, the cooks at Cuoco twist and trim noodle dough into mops of spaghetti and sheets of lasagna. Upstairs at Ting Momo, Douglas' longtime Dahlia Lounge chef, Dekyi Thonden, folds dumplings. And on the other side of a Tibetan cotton curtain, at Brave Horse Tavern, bakers keep wire bushel baskets heaped high with chewy Bavarian pretzels. It's a stunning excavation of the world's bread box.
While the three restaurants share a roof (and, on the second floor, restrooms), the hydra doesn't function like a food court. Diners who opt for the civility of prosecco and lardo crostinis at Cuoco may have no clue that hundreds of Amazon employees are congregated overhead, pouring pints from sloshing pitchers of Olympia lager and settling office squabbles on the shuffleboard tables.
The setup is reminiscent of a cruise ship, where cheek-by-jowl themed restaurants operate as seemingly independent entities. And just as cruise passengers are fated to try the pizza parlor, steakhouse, and Asian stir-fry bar before docking, eaters situated anywhere near the thriving South Lake Union district are likely to visit all three of Douglas' Terry Avenue outlets. Here then is a tour of the 10th, 11th, and 12th restaurants in Douglas' Seattle portfolio.
Check out a "Food Porn" slideshow from Tom's SLU trifecta.
Ting Momo is the outlier of the building's culinary combo. It's open only for lunch, and doesn't feature any dishes for which neighborhood office workers are likely to harbor innate cravings. But much as grateful monarchs bestowed estates upon noblemen who led their subjects to victory in battle, Douglas has given Thonden a restaurant to show his appreciation for her work. There might as well be a giant red bow on the front door.
Traditional Tibetan cuisine centers on yak and barley, but Thonden leans heavily on a band of seasonings that are so critical to her cooking that a few of them are showcased in glass spice jars near the cash register (while the other restaurants also keep lunch hours, Ting Momo is the only one which offers counter service). There's tamarind, cumin, and orange zest, a mix that becomes monotonously familiar halfway through the restaurant's short menu.
Ting Momo serves three styles of dumplings; a grassy coconut milk–based soup with shiitake mushrooms and too-gummy noodles; and a daily special, which is often rather soupy too. The most popular order is an Azag Azog plate, crammed with one of each dumpling type, a teacup of underseasoned chickpea salad, and a skein of pickled cabbage as purple as Jane Fonda's workout tights. Visually, it's a captivating plate.
Like jelly spilling from a doughnut, a bit of tender yak meat pokes its way out of the crimped steamed dumpling, or momo, slender as a clam. Unfortunately, the dumpling itself is gluey and bland. A pork-fried dumpling, or samo, is greasy, and a rotund, soft steamed dumpling, or tingmo, stuffed with mushrooms and threads of bamboo, is a disappointingly spongy bun.
It's conceivable that Thonden has become overwhelmed by the crowds who pack the boardinghouse-style tables in her supremely energetic red-walled dining room. Lunchers wielding chopsticks are forever clanging elbows, and staffers struggle to keep up with the endless busing duties.
There are hints that Ting Momo will sparkle once the restaurant overcomes its opening jitters. A single potato samo was among the best things I ate at any of the Terry Avenue restaurants. Fried golden, the two-bite dumpling was an optical doppelgänger for a tiny chicken drumstick, right down to its rounded cloverleaf end. The gorgeous samo encased potatoes and peas dashed with a bright, aromatic curry, and tasted like a Himalayan shepherd's pie.
While the clientele at Cuoco skews older than that of Brave Horse and Ting Momo, I wouldn't wish the restaurant on anybody old enough to remember trading a radio for a television. The prices are often ludicrously high, and the portions are measly.
I don't mind shelling out three bucks for bread when it's as lush and nutty as the bread Cuoco produces. But I took affront at a $4 dish of three tightly wound fiddlehead-fern tops, each no bigger than a subway token, capped with squares of La Tur so tiny it was impossible to appreciate the Italian cheese's oozy runniness.
There's steak ($55 buys 24 ounces of dry-aged beef), fish, pork, and guinea hen at Cuoco, but the menu's dominated by 10 pastas, about half of which are made in-house. Here too, portions pose problems. The server on our first visit couldn't quite say how many pastas we should order. Since the dishes are priced between $12 and $25, we assumed one apiece would suffice after a smorgasbord of antipasti (this was pre- fiddlehead encounter), but the server advised sharing at least three or four.
